


I always take hearts that shouldn't be mine

by Alsike



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corporate, Cheating, F/F, holiday parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28390377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: It wasn't cheating; Zor said they were on a break.But he hadn't meant that kind of break.It wasn't really funny, Alura realized, to find out that you'd cheated retroactively.And then what did you say?And then what did you do?
Relationships: Lucy Lane/Alura In-Ze | Alura Zor-El
Comments: 21
Kudos: 113





	I always take hearts that shouldn't be mine

**Author's Note:**

> My birthday tradition continues! This fic was mostly written while I was in a corporate job that I hated. I feel that comes through.
> 
> Title from Pale Waves' Red: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tzXWrTk8pA&ab_channel=PaleWaves-Topic

The work party was on New Year's Eve, which said a lot about what the Company thought about their employees' personal lives. It was held in the ballroom of a hotel, spreading out through hallways and out onto a rooftop balcony that overlooked the city. 

When Lucy walked in, she reconsidered all her life choices for the past two years. It was her first Company holiday party, as she'd ended up a new in-house counsel by negotiating the acquisition of the start-up she'd worked for previously. Feeling underdressed in her black cocktail dress and heels, she wondered whether the sale had been a good idea. Back at the start-up a holiday party had meant Santa hats passed around on a Friday afternoon, and everyone being allowed to go home early. Here there was champagne and ballgowns, and the same sort of sad posturing she saw every day at work.

Trying to avoid her teammates, she headed out onto the roof. It was filled with clusters of people near the lights and the stand heaters. But over by the railing, it was quiet. Only one woman stood there, tall, in a white and silver sheath dress that made her look like a knife, standing with a flute of champagne in her hands, as she gazed out towards the harbor, unseeing. Lucy faintly recognized her as someone high up in another department. The real appeal was that she didn't want to talk. A few yards away, Lucy leaned against the railing herself, watching the way the city lights reflected off the moving clouds.

She didn't know how long she'd been there when the first firework ripped bright and sparkling across the sky. Lucy jolted at the crack of it, and then grinned, shaking her head at herself for being so lost in the gloaming that she hadn't expected it. She glanced over and saw the woman watching her, an amused look on her face. Lucy shared her smile and the woman's widened, and then they watched the fireworks. 

Maybe the party wasn't so bad.

Maybe the coming year would be all right too.

Alura had planned to give the holiday party a miss. She'd been with the company for fifteen years, and there was nothing that half-drunk networking would get her. She'd wanted to stay home with Kara and watch the fireworks on tv. But even though Kara was only home from boarding school for three weeks, she'd made plans to sleep over at a friend's tonight--approved by Zor, but not mentioned to Alura until it was all arranged--and the argument that ensued had made the stilted false friendliness of the party more appealing than being at home.

Calvin, Alura's least-favorite colleague made her regret her decision immediately. "Where's Mr. Alura?" he asked. "You know, I haven't seen him at one of these parties in a couple of years."

"He's at home."

"And isn't that where spouses should stay?" He gave her a sly, conspiratorial look, and Alura made an excuse and fled. Calvin was disgusting. She wouldn't have an affair with him if he were the last person on earth.

But he wasn't wrong that things weren't fine with Zor. Honestly, nothing was fine in Alura's life. Ever since she'd been promoted out of Legal and into management, she'd hated her job. But whenever she suggested the idea of taking a paycut to transition back into the field she loved, Zor would panic. He had budgets, retirement plans, involving things he enjoyed, like travel and boats, and of course, expensive schools for Kara. A year and a half of boarding school had already made her newly-minted teenager a stranger. Was Alura really going to spend the next twenty-five years of her life working a job she hated so that Zor could buy a boat when they retired?

It didn't matter. There wasn't an exit strategy that wouldn't make a stir, and Alura hated making a stir. If she just kept working, kept pretending her proud, tall, angry 13 year old was still the sweet little girl she had been, kept making public appearances with Zor, everything would look fine, and then it would be fine.

The girl leaning against the railing a few yards down jumped at the first firework, and it made Alura smile. Someone else so absorbed in their thoughts they forgot it was a holiday. Then the girl gave her a guilty grin, rubbing her neck, embarrassed.

She looked like a real person. A rarity. How nice.

"You think people drop these over the edge sometimes?" Lucy waved her champagne glass over the void.

"I hope not," Alura said dryly. "I'd hate to be on the receiving end."

Beyond the brief exchange, she hadn't even spoken to the woman, but back at work the next week, Lucy kept an eye out for her. It was a nice distraction from her job, which, she'd discovered, was mostly making everything look fine, even if it wasn't. She used to be able to make sure things  _ were _ fine, but now she was just a lackey, and the decisions weren't her responsibility anymore. Her life had become drop down menus in Excel spreadsheets. 

After a long company intranet stalk, she finally IDed the woman: Alura InZe, head of Ops, which technically, via a few wiggly lines between departments. made her Lucy's boss. After that, Lucy kept catching sight of her, moving through the halls, her business attire impeccable, a glossy little briefcase of the brand advertised at law schools one her hand, palm pilot in the other. She never smiled.

Except once, when Lucy had come in an hour early for a conference call with Korea and found her making coffee in the break toom. She'd blinked at Lucy's flurried form, at her hair full of fly-away strands after a subway ride and a removal of a beanie, and flashed a brief smile.

And well, then it was too late; Lucy was captivated by this tall, tired, older woman, with the dry wit and lightning-quick smile, so brief as to seem unbearably intimate. The thought itself was embarrassing to think, but Lucy couldn't help imagine a certain amount of captive princess in Alura--more like captured queen, exhausted by the years of captivity, but still undaunted. It was hard to look away from something beautiful in a cage, even if only because the incongruity seemed so unjust.

At the next party, Lucy found her way to an empty space on the balcony, and Alura joined her there. Though they'd hardly spoken, it felt familiar, simple. Of course they knew each other. Of course they were friends. This time they did speak. This time it was easy.

"Would you like to go out for drinks sometime?" The party was nearly over, and they'd laughed and made fun of their colleagues, and drifted into a legal-philosophical discussion about the use of 'and' in legal language versus ordinary language. Lucy just hadn't wanted this unexpected pleasure to slip away into the ephemerality of a work party.

Alura looked over, her eyes intent, a stray curl fallen from her updo snaking in a spiral against the skin of her neck. "Friday?" The palm pilot was out, and Lucy grinned up at her, unashamed of how happy the quick agreement made her.

They met for drinks and gossip and shop-talk, always in the same sort of venues: rooftop bars, all crystal and Curaçao, and restaurants only at the most expensive hotels. Lucy liked getting dressed up and going out. She hadn't had the chance after college and law school, when it was work-work-work all the time. Now she could play at being a New Yorker. Alura, always put-together and confident was the perfect companion. Alura never spoke of anything personal, but Lucy didn't mind. She didn't talk about anything personal either, and that almost made the friendship better. It was nice to have someone see you as you wanted to be seen, not be defined by your vulnerabilities. It was being seen at your best, at your most poised and ready and special. It was easier to see the best parts of yourself if you knew someone else saw it too.

Kara was already back at boarding school. She hadn't wanted to go, to move away from all her friends, to go to an 'institution' that had its own boathouse but no soccer team. But Alura hadn't stopped it, hadn't even noticed it was happening until it was all arranged. And of course Zor had claimed the role of Fun Dad years before, leaving Alura with the disciplinarian role. So Kara blamed her mom for the school plan, even though her dad was the one who'd encouraged it. Her mom didn't say no, and her mom was paying for it. That was reason enough to believe it was her mom who wanted to send her away.

Alura was so tired of the game 'blame Alura for everything.'

Lucy was a nice change. Lucy was small, which made Alura feel unexpectedly powerful. She was admiring--which was an entirely new experience, having someone  _ admire _ her. She was attractive and self-possessed and a little secretive, but also secretive in the meaning of liking to share secrets--making eye contact across a room when a blowhard was giving a speech, slipping secret treats into Alura's hand as she passed behind her, and just showing up, to be silent and yet present, when Alura thought that her desire for non-stressful company was a secret no one would ever unveil.

They talked a little, made fun of people a lot, and flirted--almost as exercise. It was a pleasure to have someone she liked express their admiration for her, and Alura enjoyed finding ways to express it back. Flirting felt meaningful--like bonding--but also innocent. These bars, these games, they weren't a real place, and nothing that happened here really mattered.

It was innocent, so Alura didn't give any thought to the way she always made sure to look her best when meeting up with Lucy. She didn't think about how much she liked the way Lucy walked in heels, the way her dresses rode up her strong thighs, the way when her hair started coming down in a tangle she was always the more attractive for it.

She didn't think about it, until the fight.

Zor had been making plans to go see his family over Kara's spring break, spend time with his brother, make sure Kara knew her cousins. Alura just wanted to stay home, spend time with  _ Kara _ , since they had so little of it and all of it felt poisoned. Somehow this simple disagreement had spun out of control. Zor's hands in his hair, nearly tearing it out, and Alura just wanting him to stop making plans with her money without consulting her, but to him the plans were what they had to do. This was the obvious thing. She was being irrational. It was  _ their _ money.

There was yelling, screaming. And then:

"I need a break, I need a break from this." 

Zor had said it.

"I do too," she'd replied.

Alura had gone into her office and fallen back against the door to recover herself. How had this gone so badly? She'd just wanted to stay home. She'd just wanted one break where they stayed home.

Zor ended up taking Kara to his brother's family anyway. Alura, left at home, since they both agreed that spending too much time with each other was not a good idea, was too exhausted to be angry that she'd lost both arguments--he'd spent her money on plane tickets and stolen her little girl away.

In the middle of that vile, lonely week, Lucy texted.  _ we should meet up. I have a work thing at 8pm Friday but I would love to have an excuse to leave at 10, and there's a really nice rooftop bar [pinned location] _

Receiving that text was the first pleasant feeling she'd had since Kara had rolled in from school, rolled her eyes hard, dumped her laundry down the chute and then packed and rolled out to go see her uncle.

Alura texted back immediately:  _ yes _ .

Alura hadn't really thought about what it meant to be on a break until she'd gotten that text. She and Zor were  _ on a break. _ They could fuck other people. Zor had probably been dying for this chance for years.

Alura hadn't; she hadn't thought of monogamy as a trial. It was just the deal, and she kept her promises. It wasn't hard to keep your promises, if you remembered them.

She had no promises to keep now.

With those thoughts running through her head, when Lucy gave her that wry buzzed little half-smirk that had always felt like a once-over plus an 'I know you,' Alura took it as an invitation. In the hotel hallway, behind a potted palm, she put one hand on Lucy's hip, one hand on her cheek.

She kissed Lucy, and Lucy, tasting of bitters and gin, kissed her back.

In some ways, sex changed everything, and in other ways it changed nothing. Their night out still happened in an expensive hotel, just with their plush pillows and high-thread count sheets, showers with glossy taps and marble and jets in the bathtub. Heels and a cocktail dress had never made a secret of Lucy’s shoulderblades or the curve of her calves, or even the warm tan that Alura now knew wasn't really a tan because even the most secret spaces were that color.

It wasn’t as if their self-presentations hadn't always invited touch, played with color, light, texture, scent. Sex was a natural extension of the game they'd already been playing. And like that game, it wasn't real.

It only felt different in the morning. The shades were closed, the room grey with shadow, and when Alura lifted her head from where it lay, Lucy was already up and showered. Her hair was wet on her neck, her towel rubbing away sparkles of water. She looked over, her face clean of make up, of artifice, and she smiled, gentle, a little sleepy still. That, those cluster of little things, they felt real, and real felt unbearably heavy.

When Zor came back he was warm and apologetic. His family was always harder to deal with than he remembered, and Kara’s coldness didn’t have Alura to absorb it. He hugged Alura and promised to listen to her in the future. Still tired, Alura didn't really believe him, but it was easier to accept his not-quite apology and let her bitterness and frustration go.

While embracing her, he pressed close and let his hand slide down to cup her waist. “Spending a little time apart was good for us to get some perspective, I think," he said. "But I just wanted to make sure you knew that I wasn't thinking of it as a ‘break’ like the kids say. I don’t want to be with anyone with you, and I wanted to make sure you knew that.”

Alura went stiff.

He tried to look deeply into her eyes. “You feel the same, right?”

“ . . . right.”

What else could she say? Oh no, I did interpret it as a real break and slept with someone from work? They had  _ just _ stopped fighting. And in retrospect, of  _ course _ that wasn’t what he’d meant by break, of course she should never have taken it as free rein to sleep with her colleague.

The shift between something she was allowed to do, even if it was probably unwise, and something that was against the rules felt like iron doors slamming down around her. But it was too late to change anything. She'd done what she'd done. It was only cheating in retrospect.

She didn't text. Lucy texted once, casual. "Drinks?"

But when Alura didn't respond, she didn't press.

She didn't press, and the world went dead.

Maybe it had always been dead. Maybe that was the whole point, why starbursts in the night sky and the sound of someone breathing near her had led to what it had. There was nothing meaningful in her life, nothing that offered her anything worthwhile at all.

Alura made it through the summer, through the fall to the next holiday party, feeling drawn, zombie-like. Kara had come home for Winter Break and she was grouchy and secretive. Zor was pouting because Alura put her foot down and they weren't visiting his family again. The work party was full of people she didn't want to see, Calvin, other sleazy men she worked with, bosses who thought that she'd be pleased by their attentions to her.

She wasn't pleased by their attention, whether professional or sexual; she never had been. The party was as tiring as being at home. Everything was wearing her down.

And then, a flash in the corner of her eye; she saw her.

Lucy was there, diamonds sparkling on her wrist, pretty and perfectly put together. A man stood near her, tall and handsome, a date, not a work-colleague, offering her another glass of wine, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Alura, and her eyes were dark and intent.

She looked like she wanted to run, but Lucy never ran. That was one thing Alura had learned about her; she never ran. But she saw.

She saw Alura, and there was no way Alura could hide from that. So Alura was the one who ran.

Was it really running away if she had gone to the roof? The roof was never away from Lucy. Maybe instead of flight it had been a challenge, a question. What now? Do you want me now?

Lucy followed. She emerged onto the roof, moving fast, and then slowed to a stop a few feet away from Alura, where Alura stood against the wall that guarded the edge.

They had never talked about the hard things. Avoiding reality held their relationship together. But the hard things were still there. They couldn't deny their existence, not after having brushed against each other's lives for as long as they had, not after knowing parts of each other that you weren't supposed to show to a stranger.

Lucy’s mouth was taut, her jaw tight. She wasn't someone who forgave easily, Alura knew, but sometimes you didn't need to forgive. Sometimes there was something else you want more.

Alura didn't apologize. She beckoned, the gesture very slight, her hand down by her side. Lucy went stiff, taut, like a bow string ready to launch. Alura stepped toward her, just one step, and then Lucy was there, her body catapulting against Alura's, hands in Alura’s hair, wrecking it. Her mouth was eager and still angry, but that only made the kiss taste sharp and acidly metallic.

So this was cheating.

It was fine.

When Alura got home in the morning, Zor met her at the door. "Where were you?"

"I drank too much and didn't want to leave the car," she said. "They had a block of rooms reserved, so I stayed over."

Lying was also fine.

2

Lucy was fucked. That was all she knew, but it was pretty clear. At first she hadn't known why Alura liked her enough to keep meeting her for drinks and listening to her ramble and giving her good advice, but Lucy knew herself enough to know that this was a crush--one of those crushes on someone too cool to be attainable, like a teacher, or your best friend's mom, or your lacrosse coach. But unlike all those times, she wasn't just one of a mass of kids. Alura sought her out at parties, responded to her texts, and told her she was pretty.

She never seemed to mean anything by it, but it was like she knew when Lucy didn't feel quite put together enough, felt like her rough day was showing on her face, and said just enough to make those feelings go away.

Thinking about her was a distraction. Lucy knew that too. A distraction from her job problems and the nasty letters she'd gotten from the coworkers at the start-up who hadn't been included in the transition.

Lucy worried she talked too much about herself, about her own problems. But Alura evaded personal questions, but was voluble in response to other types, and Lucy was cooperative. If she didn't want to talk about personal things, fine. They were work friends--maybe something more than that, but Lucy couldn't put her finger quite on what.

Then there was that one night; Alura came to meet her after the work cocktail party, and she was even more intense than usual. Her hair was down--rare--feathered a little, and light, like a lion's mane. Her eyeliner was dark and her lipstick was dark and she looked like she was looking for something.  _ Hunting _ .

Over drinks she stayed focused on Lucy, a little sharper than usual, sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, but her sharpness was funny, a little cutting, never quite cruel, and Lucy liked it. Liked her. It was a feeling in her chest like a rock just hovering over on the cusp of losing center of gravity, caught up in the moment before it slipped fully to the side and fell.

She liked Alura. And when Alura kissed her in the hotel hallway, obscured by the potted palm, she wasn't going to not kiss her back.

Being with Alura wasn't like she expected--not that she'd known what to expect. But she'd sort of thought, that maybe, if it ever happened, that Alura would let her in, that intimacy would involve  _ intimacy _ . But it didn't. Alura was still closed off, intense, tangled up with her, but oddly formal. It felt like the sex people had in movies, not in real life. Alura didn't lose control, and so Lucy scrambled to not lose control either. But that wasn't possible. It was too much, overwhelming. And Lucy ended up being controlled, moved, driven to the edge.

She had to swear at Alura a bit,  _ stop it, stop it please _ , and Alura grinned at her, finally, revealing pure pleasure and slightly savage amusement, and . . . it hit hard.

This was a good thing. Having this, strange as it was, it was pretty incredible, and Lucy gave in to it.

That meant, when Alura didn't text, and then didn't text her back, it was a thousand times worse.

It was always a little horrifying to experience that moment of perspective shift--shit, I had a crush--to realize How Much time you'd been spending obsessing about the person who didn't give a shit about you. Too much. Way too much. Lucy needed a life, and a real date, and probably a new career plan.

Tinder was there for her. And LinkedIn. And . . . her sister. Really, though, her sister's set up would have been the last thing she'd ever go along with, except she'd caught herself facebook stalking Alura when her sister had called, staring in horror at the one public photo--a family unit, mom dad and toddler--and wanting to die. How had she not known about this? All the people at work who were moms were MOMS. They made a point of it. It was their main conversational gambit. But Alura had been dead silent on the topic of husband and kids, and that was . . . kind of unsettling really. It felt faintly sociopathic. And it all made Lucy feel worse for having crushed so hard.

Lois's set up was really nice too.

Lucy felt like she was being punished.

So she'd gone out with Lois's friend Jimmy a few times. He was nice, and he liked dates in flannels and jeans, walking down by the riverfront. He was a birder, which Lucy found faintly absurd at first, and then, noticed herself noticing birds differently and telling her work colleagues that she'd seen an  _ oriole _ , and was like fuck. It's infectious. He was handsome too, and she was pretty sure when they had sex it would be human--kind of awkward, but without the high stakes that made it embarrassing.

She had an interview for a new job lined up, but also her manager had quit and the new department had gotten 20% more chill. Her colleagues had started to talk to her. She only got weird looks when she brought up birding.

Things were better. She was fine.

Some mistakes didn't have dire consequences.

. . .

People were gossiping about Alura.

She overheard it in the big downstairs cafeteria--she never went down there, except the break-room near Legal had a broken microwave, and she needed to heat up some soup. So she was lurking around, waiting for her soup to warm, when she heard a couple of suits gossiping.

_ She was always tough, but now she's just a bitch. _

_ You think she knows she's getting passed over for Tom's job? _

_ I think her marriage is breaking up. Her husband hasn't come to an event in six years. It's about time. _

_ Fuck. In-Ze was married? I couldn't have told you that. _

_ Oh, Mr. Alura used to come around a lot, with their kid. Haven't seen either in a while. I thought they split ages ago. Maybe there's some custody shit going on. _

Logically, it told Lucy nothing--except that she wasn't the only one who had no idea what was going on in Alura's home life. But it also brought up the interpretation that there  _ was _ something going on. There was something going on, and maybe . . . maybe Lucy had made it worse.

It was stupid, it was distracting, she had a cute boyfriend and a reasonable job environment. She didn't have to have an obsessive crush on a Far Far superior.

She invited Jimmy to the holiday party because she had to. The weight of its approach was more than she could take. That had been the first time, finding her up on the roof, when Lucy had been trying to escape . . . Maybe Alura had been trying to escape also.

Bringing Jimmy had been the talisman she needed. The party was fine, everything was going to be fine. Then she turned around, and saw her.

Even naked, Lucy'd never seen Alura anything other than perfect. But this time, there was something raw about her, something frozen and distant. She was perfect, always perfect, talking to people, offering that small tight smile that was so familiar people thought it was real. But it hadn't been the grin she wore when she'd put Lucy on her back and wrecked her.

That had been real.

Then Alura spotted Lucy watching her, and the façade crumbled. She ran, and Lucy panicked.

There was only one place Alura would go if she wanted to be found, and Lucy had to know if she wanted to be found. It was dumb, leaving Jimmy--his Christmas present of a tennis bracelet still glimmering on her wrist--leaving the party. There was an emergency, she told him. She had to go. "I'll go with you?" But she was already gone.

Up on the roof the night air was chilly. A sputter of a too early firework out from the Battery sounded like gunfire. And there was Alura, the rawness gone, only coolness, composure remaining. She looked at Lucy. Lucy looked back.

_ Why didn't you ever tell me anything about your life? _

But Lucy hadn't asked.

She didn't even want to know the answer. All she really wanted to know was that she hadn't been meaningless.

Alura's mouth, rough and commanding, her hand, manipulating Lucy's chin, her body hot where the air was cold.

_ She wants me. _ That was all Lucy knew. But it felt like it might just be enough.

It felt like enough to let her hire a room, to meet her quietly, knocking once on the door, to come inside, to have fingertips run down the back of her neck, to have her dress unfastened, to let it fall carelessly to the floor.

Sometimes it was just wanting.

Sometimes wanting was enough.

Lucy didn't ask and Alura didn't tell. Alura didn't say anything to anyone. It was easier that way. It was easy to text Lucy--meet me at the rooftop bar on 12th--just like they always had. They'd drink a little, talk about nothing important at all, and then go to the room Alura had rented, and take each other's clothes off.

That was how it was supposed to be. It was how Alura wanted it. Lucy was the one bright thing in her life, and she didn't want to look too close, know too much, because she didn't want her to go dull too. And yet, after sex, too lazy to get up, to shower and dress and go home, they'd lay together, Alura stroking up the back of Lucy's neck, Lucy's head pillowed on her chest.

It almost felt tangible, like there was something she could have if she reached out and took it.

But that feeling stopped when Lucy gave her the warning.

"People at work think things are messed up at home for you." Lucy's eyes were dark, knowledgeable, strangely wise. What did she know? No one knew. Lucy couldn't. But maybe she'd guessed. "It's probably going to affect your performance review."

"If I say I don't care?"

That was when Lucy did look surprised. She'd admitted too much, gone too far.

It was a useful warning.

Alura had to pretend to be normal. She couldn't crack up now. She had Lucy, like this. She had one selfish thing, so she would be unselfish in work, keeping her job, making sure Zor could make those plans he wanted to, organize vacations, buy his boat, get Kara into those good schools, regardless of her protests.

If everything else was for family, Lucy could be for her.

Things were different now, Lucy'd figured out. Alura still didn't talk about anything personal, but she let some parts of it show. She let herself be tired and bury her face between Lucy's breasts. She spilled small secrets: how little she cared about work, how much she missed Legal. She'd wanted to practice law--not this. But when you had an academic husband on a weak job market, and a baby--you took what you could get. Being in-house had been fine.

It was said crisply, brusque, in short sentences. But Lucy still heard the regret.

They felt . . . a little more like real friends. Funny, how they had to be having an affair before they could be friends.

Then Alura started doing things for her.

Lucy didn't notice at first. It was just small things, making her life easier. The guy who'd been pushing back on replacing the Legal microwave finally signed the requisition. Her request for a work-from-home day a month got approved. A new colleague who turned out to be an asshole got spoken to, then fired. Little things that she'd mentioned to Alura were taken care of.

Alura let them be seen together too, not just at company parties. Alura dropped by Legal for coffee on occasion. "This used to be my department," she'd say, but she'd look at Lucy when she did.

It was nice--weird, but nice. Lucy knew there was nothing more really possible with Alura. Alura was too closed off, was married, had too many of her own obligations. So Lucy kept dating Jimmy--taking it slow, though he was definitely the sort of guy who jumped in to relationships feet first. It felt wrong, to be forcing him back with one hand and trying to draw Alura closer with the other. Selfish, maybe. But she was doing it anyway. She didn't know how to stop.

And then Lucy heard the rumors--about herself.

She'd thought the first one was just a joke. "If you really want that, convince Lucy. She's got ways of making things happen around here."

It was within earshot, close enough that she laughed. "What?" she'd said. "That's news to me."

The guy hadn't answered. He'd just made a 'huh' noise and walked away.

"How do you know Alura?" her manager asked her. "She used to be  _ my _ manager." He grinned a little. "Terrifying."

"Uh, we just met at a company party."

"What do you talk about?"

Lucy tried to come up with something that wasn't 'gripe about work' or 'sex.' "Alcohol, mostly?"

A dumb answer, and her manager gave her a dumb look in response.

"I don't know. Just stuff. We have-- things in common. Law things?"

"You talk about work?"

Oh god. "Sometimes?"

Her manager chewed his lip for a moment. "Don't," he said. "Look. I know it's nice to have the boss on your side, to get perks. But I don't need the wrath of In-Ze coming down on my head, okay? If you have a problem, tell me, not her, and we'll work it out. I know you might think she's a get out of jail free card, but she's not your only boss."

Lucy knew a threat when she heard one. After that, she made sure to talk about Jimmy a lot at work. There was being too friendly with a boss, and then there was sleeping with a boss, and she didn't need a rumor about one to turn into a rumor about the other. Not while she was still in this office.

And if  _ her _ department was talking about her . . . she really didn't want to know what Alura's department was saying about Alura.

Lucy tried to be more restrained, but talking about work had become part of their normal, and not talking about it was uncomfortable and weird. Alura was sensitive to uncomfortable and weird, but it made her guarded and silent, and Lucy liked how they had gotten past that--if not to open, but at least to comfortable.

"Look, I can't talk about work," she finally said straight out. "They're getting twitchy about us being friendly."

"What?" Alura heard the whole story and grew wildly indignant. "I am still responsible for that department. Do they expect me to only have my direct reports as sources? Am I not supposed to make things work better and be more manageable there?"

Lucy liked indignant Alura., but this didn't resolve the issue.

"I just don't want someone saying something and it getting-- somewhere you don't want it to."

Too far. Alura went hard and still.

"It won't," she said. And then she said nothing. She pushed Lucy against a wall, roughly, and kissed her, as if her strength could prove that what she'd said before was true.

#

Work was fine, Alura was sure. It was home that was the problem. Zor seemed blithe and unconcerned about her repeated nights away—she didn’t intend it to be nights, but Lucy was warm and a little sticky, and it was hard to get out of bed again once you were in it. Kara wrote home to say she’d been invited to the Luthor’s house for spring break, with her friend Lena, and Zor had called them up and it was all settled—though if Alura had been asked she would have been less than pleased about the visit— _ and _ about Kara’s choice of friends. Their company had pursued a deal with LuthorCorp, and their lawyers had been awful. She’d ended up putting the kibosh on it, because they weren’t trustworthy and wouldn’t give her the data she was asking for. She’d been suspicious of Luthors ever since.

But all of this meant that though nothing seemed to have changed . . . nothing  _ had _ changed. Her life wasn't any better, except she was more detached from her feelings about it. But feeling detached didn't fix anything.

Her life just didn't seem to matter anymore. The hard part was that she couldn't even say Lucy mattered, which all made this feel more pointless, and more tiring. Lucy was just . . . not her life. She was drawn to Lucy's attention and her conspiratorial looks. It was why she'd found herself in Lucy's office so often, not quite willing to come and lean against the beam beside her desk, but also not willing to walk past without seeing her quick warm smile.

It was risky, but Alura didn't care very much, about anything. If she had nothing worth anything to lose, there was no risk.

Just don't touch her at work. That was the only rule.

It was a rule for Lucy too. And Lucy's warning about office gossip meant she was worried about Alura, and that was nice of her. So Alura made an effort to not make Lucy's life worse than she already had.

But her own life? She didn't care about that.

That meant it was easy to take risks, to push, to stay out a little later, to lie a little less skillfully.

She stopped planning her lies. She stopped worrying about if they were truly out of sight before she kissed Lucy. She stopped making the regular Saturday night calls that Kara always complained about. If Kara didn't want her mother to call, she didn't have to put up with her calling. If Alura stopped caring, all of this would stop hurting, wouldn't it?

When Kara came home for summer break, she realized how lax she'd gotten, how Zor never questioned her or called her on her lies. Kara was only home for two weeks between school and the theater camp she'd been lukewarm about going to, but she hadn't seemed particularly thrilled to see Alura, so Alura had texted Lucy to meet. But Kara had come into her room while she was getting ready to go and glared.

"Where are you going tonight?" Kara asked.

"I'm meeting a friend for drinks."

"Why are you getting dressed up?"

"We're going to a nice place. They don't let you in in jeans."

"Do I know your friend?"

Alura looked at her daughter. "Why are you giving me the third degree?"

Kara frowned, confused by the expression 'the third degree.' It wasn't one she knew. But she knew Alura was avoiding answering her. So she scowled and stomped off.

Alura didn't understand her daughter anymore. The encounter put her in a bad mood. When she was in a bad mood, Lucy got fingertip bruises and a split lip from too hard of a kiss.

Lucy didn't actually mind, but she could tell the difference.

#

"What got into you?" Lucy grumbled. She tasted blood and then saw it when she looked in the mirror. It wasn't a question she usually asked--but she wasn't usually bleeding. 

Alura scowled at her. Lucy didn't know what Kara looked like now, but if she had known, she might have laughed at how similar their scowls looked. Or she might not. Instead, she just glared back.

Alura looked away, lips tight, pouting--Lucy would have said, if prim, poised Alura would  _ ever  _ be caught pouting. "My daughter's back from school. She wouldn' t leave it alone, where I was going."

Lucy snorted. "You think she might have wanted to spend time with you, instead of having you fuck off to see your mistress?"

Her words came out more vicious than usual, but she was tired, and bleeding and frustrated that she was here too, that she broke a date with Jimmy to be here. Maybe she was tired of this being who she was, of being someone who always lied, who needed lies to get through each day.

"Are you going to tell me how to parent now?" Alura snapped back. "You're unsatisfied with me, unsatisfied with my parenting. How else am I disappointing you today?"

"Being a brat about a single comment isn't  _ less _ disappointing."

"I don't know what you expect from me!"

"Nothing! It's always been nothing! Unless you want that to change now?"

Because it was strange, Lucy realized, Alura telling her about her kid, not letting her in, but not keeping her out in the same way.

Alura went silent, still, nothing in her expression or posture to give away her thoughts.

Lucy looked away. No one said anything.

"I just think it's kind of weird that I've been sleeping with you for a year and I don't even know your kid's name," Lucy said finally.

She got up, got her clothes, because there wasn't going to be a second round or curling up around a warm body tonight. Her shoes and her coat were the end of the bed, then she didn't have anything to do but head to the door.

"Her name is Kara," Alura said. Lucy looked over, and Alura met her eyes. "I don't think we should do this anymore."

"We shot by 'should' a hella long time ago," Lucy said. And then she left. Like hell was she giving Alura the last word.

#

Lucy had been wondering when she was going to stop feeling so tangled up about Alura. She liked Alura, sometimes, when she was a little cruel but funny, and when she was overly indignant about a legal issue or exasperated about problems at work, and she felt strange around her when it was clear she was sad. But mainly Lucy was attracted to her, unexpectedly, incredibly attracted to her.

But that wasn't a relationship. It was barely a friendship. 

Usually it went away, didn't it? Attraction became something calmer. A pleasure in someone's presence. Companionate friendship. But with Alura it was still like the heat bursting from a gas stove that had been reluctant to light from the moment Alura caught her eye.

Or it had been.

Maybe it was over now.

Maybe it was finally actually over.

#

The most distressing thing was that everything Lucy had said was right. Alura hadn’t shared anything with her, but she’d sussed her out anyway.

Maybe that was what Alura had wanted. Maybe that was why she’d been as attracted as she had been by Lucy’s curious, incisive gaze. She wanted to be found out.

But Lucy's dismissal gave Alura enough perspective to see her own behavior for what it was. It was stupid to want to be caught, foolish and self-destructive, when this was supposed to be about maintaining her life. Lucy was supposed to be the one secret pleasure that would allow her to endure all the suffering at home. That meant she needed to endure the suffering at home, not escape it. She needed to make an effort.

Kara was home and no matter how frustrating it was, she needed to give her the time she deserved.

"Good morning!" she pulled open the curtains in Kara's room, waking her up--at eleven. "What do you want to do today?"

Kara gaped at her, horrified. Eventually, she got over it.

Alura took Kara to the movies, and shopping for a new bathing suit to bring to camp. She put up with the scowly looks and derisive comments. She put up with Kara always having her headphones in and never listening.

Detachment wasn’t good parenting, but it was better than no parenting.

Oddly enough, after a few outings, Kara started to warm up to her again. She gave an uncertain smile when Alura was snide about a restaurant choice for take out—Zor’s unexciting favorite. She begged for milkshakes and when Alura obliged, getting one for herself too, she grinned, and grinned even more when Alura's responded, "it’s summer," to Zor's, "you’ll spoil your dinner!" protest, when they got home with the evidence.

It started to feel like a game to Alura. What could she do to make Kara smile, or sit on her end of the couch, or pick what she wanted to watch over Zor's preference? She did it.

Zor seemed a little put out, but Alura was parenting. And really, it had never been fair that he got to be the fun parent instead of her. It was her turn.

As the date of Kara's departure for camp came closer and closer, she got clingy, not the usual bratty 14, but quiet and a little sad.

"I don't want to go to camp."

She said it to Alura, crisply, tense, in the kitchen one afternoon when Alura was searching through the fridge trying to find something quick to make besides hotdogs.

"Why not?" It was quick, the automatic question she'd give to her underlings, not the 'are you sure, baby? what's making you feel that way?' that Zor always started with.

Kara looked down, shoulders hunched. "Lena and her friends are going to be there. Her friend Veronica doesn't like me. She tries to make me do things I don't want to, and I think she'll try to drown me."

Alura stood there, the automatic 'oh kids are so dramatic' response bubbling up, but along with it, her dislike of the Luthors. " _ Really _ ?"

"She pushed me out of the car when I was at Lena's house, while it was moving."

"And you didn't tell anyone?"

Kara shrugged. "You didn't care that I didn't want to be at school, I didn't think you'd care about this."

"Hey, what's all this?" Zor popped his head in and looked between them. "You don't want to go to camp? I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, and if you're afraid of bullying, there are counselors. You can always tell a counselor."

"If she doesn't want to go she shouldn't have to go," Alura snapped at him.

"She wanted to go when we registered!"

"It sounds like things have changed!"

Zor dismissed her, turning back to Kara. "You know you'll like it when you get there!" He put his hand on her hand. "We've already paid for it."

Kara drooped visibly. "I know."

"Look," Alura said. "I'll just call and say you're sick. I can talk anyone into a refund."

Zor gaped at her. "You can't  _ lie _ just to get what you want."

Alura rolled her eyes. "What do you think I do all day at work?" She spun to find the flyer on the fridge and get the phone number. Zor protested, trying to grab it from her, but she locked him out of the bathroom, and called from there. It was a simple conversation. "She has mono, I know, too contagious. So unexpected, she was dying to come. I'm sure we'll sign up next year, so a refund for this year would be just so kind-- of course? Perfect."

She opened the bathroom door. "It's done. You're free."

Kara looked astonished, and then threw herself at Alura, hugging her with a fierceness that was entirely unfamiliar.

Zor's brow was as furrowed as thunder.

Zor wasn’t happy about the new plan. He came and spoke to her that night. “I need you to back me up,” he said. “We need to talk about things! You can’t make unilateral decisions about Kara without me!”

“ Why not? You do.”

He seemed bewildered, so she elaborated: school, camp, holiday trips

"I always consult you!"

"No. You tell me you’ve found this exciting wonderful thing, or cheap tickets that you had to purchase. I know what railroading looks like, I’m good at it too, I just don’t think it’s fair to do it at home."

Zor stiffened at the accusation and lashed out in return. “ This wasn’t about Kara at all. You just wanted to win.  _ I’m _ looking out for her. She needs to try things, challenge herself. You’re letting her hide. And worse, you’re using her as a pawn. Against me.”

She stared at him, not caring enough to try to figure out what he meant.

When she had no response, he subsided. “I’m supposed to go on a fishing trip with my friends next week. If Kara is home—“

“ It’s fine, Zor,” Alura said. “She’s fourteen and never off her laptop. We can let her look after herself for a bit. If she wants, she can even come to work with me.”

Fourteen was too old for a babysitter, and Kara still had friends in the area. Alura hadn’t thought she’d want to come to work. But that Monday Kara dragged herself out of bed at 5:30, when Alura always had to get up, dressed in black slacks, a white button-down, and her school blazer, did her hair, complained about not being allowed contacts yet, choked down the black coffee Alura poured her, and was ready to get on the train at 6:28.

The train got to the subway at 7:10, and they squashed into the commuting crowd Kara grimacing as she clung to the bar, and rattled under the river to Alura’s stop. Kara kept up with her mother as she ascended the steps and negotiated the broken sidewalks and careless taxis. They signed in at the security desk, and Alura led the way into the office.

Kara was astonished by the espresso machine, the rows of desks, the number of men who needed Alura's immediate assistance. She was too old to be given crayons, but she had her school laptop, and Alura set her up at a spare desk with two big monitors and let her mind herself.

It was strange but...nice, having Kara there. Mostly she had her headphones in and worked on an art project, but she’d glance up every once in a while, curious about what her mom was doing.

Alura found herself curious about what her daughter was doing also and spied on the big double monitors. Kara was making composite photos with her favorite actress—a pensive young girl in a show about...witches? Who surfed? Alura was not really interested in it. But the pictures were nice. She had a talent.

“ Those are pretty.” She put her hand on Kara’s shoulder, and Kara jumped. She was blushing furiously, and Alura carefully pressed her lips together to not reveal her thoughts. The sullen-looking brunette was her favorite actress, was she? Or her celebrity crush.

Alura liked her kid, she realized. It had been a long time since she’d felt much of anything besides exasperation for her spawn. It was a strange and pleasant feeling to think of Kara as a person that Alura actually liked.

#

Lucy hadn’t been having a good few weeks. It had felt right, to walk away from Alura. It was too clear she was being used. But it had felt . . . It had felt like she’d gotten so close. Alura had actually been willing to say something about her home life, even only in the heat of anger. And then boom, she was gone. But Lucy was done being the mistress, she was tired of being at Alura's beck and call, of being overwhelmed by her own feelings.

But without that, she didn't really have a lot left. Jimmy had taken the hint that she wasn't all that into him, and her work colleagues weren't about to forget about her 'closeness with the boss' any time soon.

In fact, they'd brought it up again, right after the disastrous evening, right after Jimmy had called it quits, and Lucy had . . . slightly overreacted.

She'd told someone to fuck off and then had to hide in the bathroom and cry. That just meant that everyone was interested now.

She needed to get a new job.

Burn everything. That was the best plan.

There was always less work in summer, because of vacations making everything move slowly, but that just meant that Lucy's department had more time to get into trouble. Three of the guys in her department put their heads together and decided to volunteer her for a job that involved getting Alura's signature on something, arguing that it could of course be done in person because it was silly to put together a docusign when she's down the hall.

Lucy, dealing with their sly smiles, their snide commands to "go get this from your friend," had had enough and had taken the contract and marched off to find her, but Alura wasn't at her desk.

She found her in the break room, with a girl--a miniaturized Alura with adorable thick-framed glasses--collaborating in making an espresso-machine-concoction of what seemed like two foam packs, one chocolate pack, one hazelnut coffee pack and two raw sugar packets--and . . . laughing.

Lucy stopped in the doorway. She'd never seen Alura laughing, not like this, not unashamedly, impolitely.

She felt like a stranger.

Lucy didn't know how long she stood there, the two women organizing their drink, the younger one turning to her and seeing her, cocking her head slightly to the side.

"Did you need to get in?" she asked.

Then Alura looked up, still smiling, her eyes crinkled up in the corners. She saw Lucy and for a moment, she smiled even wider. "Lucy," she said, and there was pleasure in her voice.

It felt good to hear that pleasure. Too good.

And then the laughter dropped away from her face.

"Lucy," she said again, her voice still and thin and fragmented.

"I-- Sorry to interrupt, I need you to sign this." Lucy had to push forward, had to stop Alura from looking at her like that. She hated the way this felt, having such a nice thing ripped away.

"Oh," Alura said, "of course."

Lucy was suddenly reminded of where it came from and stopped her from pulling out a pen. "No! read it first. I don't know what the idiots in my department put in there. They just volunteered me to bring it."

Alura's expression turned into wry irritation. "Thanks for the heads up," she said and flipped it open.

The girl was still glancing between them.

Lucy smiled awkwardly at her. "Hi. Are you Kara?"

"Uh, yeah," Kara said.

Alura looked up, frozen for a moment. "Sorry," she said. "Yes, um, Kara, this is Lucy. She's my friend."

Kara smiled curiously. Her smile was as blinding as Alura's. Lucy smiled back and rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. What the hell was all of this?

"Um, I work in Legal," Lucy said.

"You used to work there, right, Mom?" Kara asked.

Alura huffed out a sigh. "In the good old days. When people didn't do this nonsense. I need to sit down with this."

Lucy grimaced. "Sorry. I should have reviewed it."

Alura waved it away. "They wouldn't listen to you."

Lucy looked between her and Kara. "Um, it's boring but I could show you around Legal? More fun to hang with your mom, but we have . . . a cool stapler."

Kara gave her a look that said very clearly: 'you are a total loser', but then she shrugged. "Okay," she said.

Alura looked up, stymied refusal clear on her face, and Lucy wanted to melt into the floor.

Lucy had no idea how to do this. What did you say to the daughter of the woman you’d been having an affair with? Like really—not ‘you’re so much older than I expected from cyber stalking your mom’ or ‘your parents are still together right. Not separated? I’d be a little relieved if they were separated’

“ So, hanging with your mom for the summer?” Lucy tried.

Kara gave her a withering look. "Are you really friends?" she asked.

Lucy tensed.

"Because she introduced everyone else as colleagues. You're the only one who she said was a friend."

Lucy hesitated, uncomfortable. "We go out outside work sometimes." They used to at least. For a long time it had just been a casual friendship--with extra wine and a terrible crush. It had been nice then. It had never been anything but a waterslide to now.

Kara stopped, gave her a long look. "Are you the friend she gets dressed up to go to nice bars with?"

There was no good answer to any of this. Why was she asking? What did she know? " . . . maybe? We do that sometimes."

Kara gave her a suspicious once-over. "All right," she said. "Now show me this stapler."

Kara was suitably impressed by the power of the stapler, and Lucy delivered her back to her mom in time for lunch and to receive the amended contract. "I promised Kara the Ethiopian food truck," Alura said. "You could . . . join us?"

Lucy shook her head. "We'll just be boring and talk about work. You go on. I'll bring these back to the idiot patrol." She smiled weakly at Kara. "Thanks for humoring me about the stapler. It was really nice to meet you, Kara."

Kara gave her a regal nod.

When the door shut behind her, Lucy breathed out.

At least they'd ended it. Christ, that was bad enough as it was. At least they'd ended it.

That night she got a text. The clutch in her gut and the wild panic made it all too clear what kind of text she expected it to be.

_ Thanks for being kind to Kara it read. _

She . . . wasn't disappointed. But she wasn't not disappointed either.

Lucy flopped on her back on her bed. It was all too clear what little she'd had. She had never even had the part of Alura that smiled.

She'd never had much of Alura at all.

That was all. No more texts. Lucy had an interview with a firm, contracts mostly, but client based--working for start-ups, looking over their papers. It was a different sort of corporate structure, she'd be more independent. She crossed her fingers for the offer, but knew she wasn't exactly what they were looking for.

Jimmy reached out, said, "If you want to be friends, I'm cool with that. You were fun to hang out with."

He was a good guy. She said yes.

Her manager was getting promoted; he sat down and told her that she'd get his position if she wanted it. It would have counted as a win, moving up, higher salary, but still around Alura and their uncomfortable history.

It had been hard, seeing Kara. Maybe Alura never telling her anything personal had been a gift. It had made their relationship not feel like what it was. It was just a strange series of one night stands. It hadn't been an affair.

Only it had been.

But they'd skated through the knives. They'd made it out, no repercussions. It was time to just forget about it and move on.

But the guilt was still there. Lucy had helped to lob a bomb into the middle of that kid's life. She was just lucky as shit that it hadn't gone off.

She was lucky.

Lois clearly thought there was something wrong with her. She showed up at Lucy's work, and charmed the security guard into giving her a visitor's tag, and walked into Lucy's office with a coffee and said, "What's wrong with you? I've been talking to Jimmy and you have problems."

All the guys in Lucy's department spun around in their chairs and stared at Lois. Lucy glared back at them all.

"Who's this fine lady," one said.

"This is my sister, you sleazeballs," Lucy snapped back.

Lois told her they were going out for lunch and once they were on the sidewalk, took her arm and said, "your whole office is an HR complaint."

Lucy, who was a walking HR complaint herself, just grumbled something about all legal departments being like that.

At lunch, Lois ordered something horrible that was mostly Kale and edamame and then gave Lucy a look. "You need to get your shit together."

Lucy, who always had her shit together, was offended by this. "I'm fine."

Lois gave her the eyebrow.

"Seriously?" Lucy protested. "I'm fine! I might be getting a promotion, and I've been interviewing elsewhere. I've managed to stay friends with Jimmy even though that wasn't going to work out. I--" and then she ran out. There wasn't a lot in her life.

Lois just watched her for a long moment and sighed. "No. There's something wrong. You always had a project. You were crazy energetic. You took risks. That's how you ended up here, taking a stupid risk that Dad told you not to, and working your ass off to make it pan out."

Lucy didn't know what to say to that. "I'm tired," she said. But why was she tired? Because she'd used up all her risks on Alura--a risk without any chance of reward. Because working hard in this company didn't feel like it would get her anywhere. It was all about who you knew and who you charmed.

She  _ was _ tired. She hadn't been so tired at first, after meeting Alura. But now. . . now she felt like she'd been tired for years.

"I think you need to fuck up," Lois said--helpful, as always. "You need a big screw up, a total disaster, and then you need to bounce back from it. You get most of your drive from holding the short straw. It's time for everything to blow up in your face."

Lucy gaped at her, her mind racing with the possibilities. She wanted to say, "holy crap, please don't say that. Just no." But she couldn't say that to Lois without explaining why, so she just smiled, and told Lois she was an asshole.

After Zor came home from his fishing trip, things were fairly calm. It was almost unsettling how low-key everyone was. Alura worked summer hours, which didn't make much of a difference to her schedule, except that she could take a Friday off every two weeks and made sure to spend the day with Kara--at the beach or at the pool. On the fourth of July, Zor dared to barbecue.

It was nice. And Alura did her best to ignore the slowly building itch that made her want to take out her phone and text Lucy. She was in a better mood lately, she knew she wouldn't take her feelings out on Lucy. She was working late during the weeks anyway. Would it be so bad to just stay a little later, go for a drink, pay for an hour at a hotel?

Could she have  _ all _ of this? A reasonable home life, an only semi-miserable work life, and Lucy also?

It was a dangerous thought.

When she found herself fiddling with her phone, wanting to text for the fourth time in one day, she gave in. Not one of  _ those _ texts, just a brief question about work. Nothing important.

The response didn't come for a few minutes, but when it did it made Alura laugh.  _ You're off today. Stop thinking about work. _

Kara glanced over from where she was doodling pretty ladies in surfwear on the beach and gave her an inquiring look.

Alura forced a small calm smile. "Lucy," she said. Kara knew her now.

Kara lifted her chin and offered a brief nod, then went back to her doodling--on closer inspection it was definitely inspired by some of the scantier clad girls on the beach, but the profile looked suspiciously like one Alura had seen drawn on almost every piece of paper Kara had. The surfing was also a clue.

Alura let out a breath, and when the phone buzzed, she looked at Lucy's actual response to the question and hmmed. She settled back in her chair and texted her again.

(She didn't text her what she really wanted to.  _ I wasn't thinking about work. I was thinking about you. _ )

After a week of texting (and micromanaging the legal department, which was not actually her job, but also very necessary) it didn't feel like much of a stretch to say,  _ Can we talk this out in person? I'll buy you dinner? Romero's? _

It was already almost eight, but she knew Lucy was still in the office.

There was a long interval before she texted back, and then it was one word.  _ Sure _ .

But it was a word that made Alura clench her fist in victory.

Lucy hadn't broken away just yet.

#

Lucy wasn't going to do this again. She wasn't; she knew better. And after Lois's invocation of the curse of interesting times, she was highly aware of just how bad this could go.

But there was a work excuse that made sense. It was dinner, not just drinks + sex. And when she showed up, Alura was clearly feeling good, bright-eyed, solicitous, making sure Lucy was well plied with alcohol, and relaxed. She told funny stories about Kara, she asked after Lucy's friends and family, and remembered things Lucy didn't know she'd told her.

It was so much like what she'd wanted that Lucy didn't really realize she was doing what she'd promised herself she wouldn't until she was naked and draped over a hotel room bed, face down, gasping and clutching at the bedspread, coming down from an orgasm, with Alura's hand firm on the back of her neck, and realizing, all too emphatically, that she'd fucked it all up again.

3

It felt like summer, properly, for the first time since Alura had finished law school. She hadn't really realized how often Kara had been away at camp during the summer--boarding school blending into sleep-away camp the same way Alura's life failed to change, unseasonal and relentless.

Her job was still atrocious, but Calvin, her most hated colleague was at the London office, and he wasn't there to drive her mad with his continual inappropriate comments about her age and the young women in entry level positions.

She liked spending time with Kara, who was quiet in a familiar way--focused. With casual questions, she got an invitation to watch the teen witch-surfer show, Kara bundled up on the couch next to her, holding a pillow tight to her chest, focused intently on the screen, color high, whenever Mindy Martindale (a young surfer witch with missing parents and a quiet anguished determination to save them) was on screen. It was not quite as terrible a show as she'd expected, but from small comments Kara made, it was clear that she show she was watching was not exactly the one on the television.

Still pleased by being invited in, even in just that little way, she mentioned her deductions offhandedly to Zor. "You know I'd prefer it if she went to school around here. That way we'd know when she got her first girlfriend."

She didn't expect Zor to drop the entire tray of miscellaneous kitchenware he'd been holding.

"What?" said Zor.

"Girlfriend?" said Zor.

"What?" said Zor again.

"I don't think that's an assumption you can make!" This was still Zor.

"I don't really think it's an assumption. Also, she goes to a girl's school. It's just statistics," reasoned Alura.

"But  _ Kara _ wouldn't--"

"Wouldn't what? Do you have any idea what I did at boarding school?" (Admittedly, she probably wouldn't have done quite as much without her twin sister. And being twins there was even more opportunity for trouble.) "You have an entire school of young women ready to source all of the trouble they can, and make the trouble they can't source, and without any of the limiting 'general presence of adults unexpectedly knocking on doors' that they'd have at home."

"They're never unsupervised!"

Alura just stared at him and Zor ashamedly started picking up the kitchenware. Did he not know that anything besides a one-to-one ratio with teenagers meant that  _ someone _ was going unsupervised?

"Have you spoken to her?" he asked quietly, mostly to the tongs.

"About what?"

"About-- everything. You seem to think she's a budding lesbian--"

"I only know she likes girls at minimum."

Zor stood and looked indignant. "And apparently there are all these dangers about girls' boarding schools that no one informed me of. Have you talked to her?"

"She's fine." Alura didn't really understand his concern. "I'm not going to pressure her to confide in me if she doesn't want to."

Zor made a move like he was about to hurl the tongs back onto the floor. Alura stepped back, startled.

"This is the problem!" he said. "You seem to think of parenting like it's an optional event! She used to confide in me. I was the one who knew all of her nightmares and which stuffed animal made her feel safe. But now she doesn't want to cuddle and apparently she's talking to  _ you _ about her sexuality. Is she trying drugs? Does she know anything about being safe? I don't know, and you-- you  _ could _ know, but you don't even care enough to ask. All you want is to win, and being her favorite is just a way to score points against me!"

Alura stood there and stared at him, seeing his anger and feeling her own bubble up, hot and fierce--strange, when everything had been dead and cold for so long.

"Why is nothing I do ever good enough for you?" she snapped back at him. "I am  _ trying _ , I am trying to actually get to know Kara after hardly having had a chance to see her in years. Fine, maybe I should be 'having the conversations,' maybe I am a terrible parent, but don't lash out at me because you're jealous that you don't get to be the Fun Dad all the time now."

"I'm not jealous," Zor snapped back. "And I didn't keep her from you. You chose to work all the time. You chose to lock yourself in your office in the evenings instead of spending time with your daughter. If you made yourself the ogre, you have only yourself to blame. But stop undermining all of the efforts I made to build a good relationship with Kara so she would trust me with these things, so I could  _ have _ these conversations. All you are teaching her is that you can lie to get what you want, that it's fine to do as you please and not give any consideration for other people, and you can buy love with treats rather than time and commitment. Maybe it would be better if you hadn't made an effort. You prefer work to home anyway, why didn't you stay there?"

"If that's what you want," she said. It was flat and unemotional, but all her emotions were raw fury paired with the deeply unpleasant knowledge that he wasn't wrong. She had made her choices a long time ago, and maybe they hadn't been the right ones, but she'd made them. If this was what he thought of her now, so be it.

She turned and walked out of the house.

She was already in the city when she called Lucy. She never called, and Lucy's voice when she picked up was very uncertain.

"Where do you live?" Alura asked, quick, abrupt, no greetings. "I'm in a bad mood and I don't want to go to a fucking hotel. And I also don't want to talk about it."

There was no reason in that whole litany for Lucy to actually give her her address, but after a long moment of silence, she did.

Lucy met her at the door with a scotch and Alura just stared at her. She was at home, in sweatpants, her hair unbrushed in a low ponytail at her neck, the scoop neck of the long-sleeved shirt slipping over one shoulder. She looked awkward and uncertain, and Alura took the scotch, put it on the counter, undrunk, stepped in, and kissed her.

It was better than the alcohol. Lucy's skin was warm under her hands and her mouth was surprised but responsive, and it was something to focus on, something that wasn't always frustration and pain and difficulty.

It was just sex. But that was enough.

They were good at it, and though Lucy's actual bedroom offered more hazards than a hotel room (books, everywhere. Alura appreciated that, until she knocked a whole stack off the side table) it was unexpectedly pleasant to be in a place that was warm and dark and smelled so much like Lucy.

It wasn't awkward until the morning, when Lucy came in, with coffee--not a sadist--and her phone. "It's been buzzing for a while," she said, and looked uncomfortable in a way that made it clear how hard it was not to ask.

There were twenty-two new alerts on her phone, half of them missed calls and voicemails from Zor. She listened to one at random. "I'm so sorry, Alura. I didn't mean that you shouldn't have been making an effort to get closer to Kara. It just shocked me when you said . . . what you did, about her, and I realized that my little girl was growing up." Alura deleted it. The next one was generally identical, but slightly more frustrated. Alura was unmoved. But the last few were texts from Kara.  _ Mom? Come home?  _ and Alura let her head fall into her hand.

It had been easier before, when she didn't feel anything but tired. Now she felt things again, angry and elated and intimate, and it made all of the quiet miseries even more dreadful.

But she had to go home.

Zor was not as welcoming as his voicemails had suggested when she showed up again. He looked at her for a long time, and she knew he'd meant everything he'd said. Well, she'd meant it too.

It was also clear, with Kara on the couch, red-eyed and runny-nosed, that she hadn't taken it well. Parents fighting and doors slamming and the news that your mom wasn't there, that would shake anyone.

Four years, and she'd be in college. If they could just sweep this under the rug for long enough to get her off to college.

She didn't know if Zor was thinking the same thing. He looked raw in an unfamiliar way, tentative, and she knew that while trying to fix things with Kara, she'd been ignoring the problems with him. But she knew that addressing any real problem would lead to another fight, and she wasn't in the mood for that right now.

And anyways, maybe the only problem was her. Maybe she was just a terrible parent, a shitty person, not doing the bare minimum to keep her job and make sure they could afford anything Kara wanted, not doing anything to maintain her marriage, sleeping with a coworker, all of the classic terrible things of someone distanced from their family.

She could survive it. She'd survived worse.

And then Calvin came back from London.

Alura had disliked Calvin intensely for years, even before they were in the same department. He had an eye for women and an ear for gossip. She'd shut him down hard once and then he'd decided she was too old for him anyway. As if daring to be forty and not actually thinking this was the end of the world made her revolting.

But back from London, he was looking at her again, with an expression that she found incredibly off-putting. He kept smiling at her, as if they shared a secret, and God, she did not want to know.

But she could guess. If it was just a rumor though, she was going to play dumb until they forgot about it. Dumb and happy.

And that meant getting Zor to the company picnic.

Usually Alura was successful in finding a way to avoid the company picnic, as it was held somewhere in New Jersey with busses going to and fro, and Alura would rather die than ride a bus with her coworkers. It was always hot, and everyone was sunburned by the end, no matter how diligent you were with sunscreen, and there was barbecue, and usually a soccer game, and pretty much the only people who had any fun were the contract workers and staid low-level functionaries who could run around and be enthusiastic. If you were a department head or up, you had to spend the day networking.

She and Zor had been quietly formal ever since the blow up. They kept out of each other's way, slept carefully on opposite sides of the bed, and didn't talk. It felt like he was holding something back, but he seemed to acknowledge that she was there, she was trying with Kara, even if he didn't like how she was trying. They'd get past this.

He even came to her after making an attempt to talk to Kara about _certain_ _things_. She'd clammed up like an oyster and looked mortified, so he'd fled. "You were right," he said. "I didn't need to push her on this."

Alura, feeling moderately vindicated, gave a small shrug. "I was not ready to be pushed on it at her age either. Unfortunately, my sister made it a problem, so I got the talk too."

Zor looked puzzled for a moment. "Oh, the talk about boys?"

Alura stared at him a moment, and then just nodded vaguely. She'd meant the talk about  _ girls _ , but if he'd forgotten she was bisexual, she didn't really feel the need to remind him.

It wasn't all that much of a surprise. People rarely remembered you were bisexual if you were in an opposite sex relationship. Apparently that could even apply to your own spouse.

In this case, it also felt like an extra layer of protection.

Zor was surprised by the invitation to the picnic. Startled, even. He gave her a long slow look, as if he suspected her of something, but then he nodded. "It could be fun."

Alura was not hoping for that kind of miracle.

Kara took the news of the party with an unsettling equanimity. She seemed to be more guarded than before the blow-up, but that wasn't terribly surprising. Yet, sometimes, she'd crawl onto the loveseat where Alura had stretched out with a novel and squash up behind her. She often looked like she was going to ask a question, but she didn't.

Alura wasn't sure she was ready for any question Kara wanted to ask.

Lucy also had big plans to avoid the picnic. She was ready to take a vacation from work and all of its accompanying nonsense. But her coworkers had a betting pool on the soccer game, and Lucy had played soccer in college, and like hell was she going to lose the pool because her team had insufficient subs.

She thought she was safe; Alura never went to the summer picnic. She even wore shorts.

And then, just after the water fight with two guys from Legal who were vindictive and went for the face, she saw an unfamiliar car pull in, and two familiar and one unfamiliar figures get out.

Alura had brought Kara, that was . . . nice.

And she'd brought her husband.

Lucy wanted to vomit.

There was an Adults area at the picnic, near the food, with beer coolers and umbrellas. Lucy wasn't surprised when the Family In-Ze headed that way (were they the Family In-Ze? Or was that just Alura's last name? There were a lot of things Lucy just didn't know.) Lucy stayed away. She did her best to just keep moving with her crowd from Legal, even if they were assholes, because stopping and thinking was garbage. Stopping and thinking meant she had to wonder why she was feeling like this, and then she would start feeling more things, and then she wouldn't be able to hide the fact she was feeling things, and then people would notice, and she'd taken the bus, so she couldn't just leave.

She was doing fine with it until Kara showed up right when she'd been booted out of an impromptu game of HORSE for being too short and sucking at basketball.

"Hi," said Kara.

This was a terrifying statement. "Hi?" Lucy floundered a bit. "How's it going?"

Kara crossed her arms. "I want you to get me a beer."

Lucy stared at her. Was this . . . extortion? "I really don't think--"

Kara crossed her arms more firmly and glared.

Lucy should probably be indignant about now. Fine. She glared back. "Do you even like beer?"

Kara hesitated. "No," she said. "Not very much."

Lucy sighed. "You trying to get me in trouble with your mom? My boss?"

Kara looked shifty again and Lucy really really wished she knew what Kara was trying to pull. "No beer," Lucy said flatly. "If you want one, you have to sneak it on your own, capisce?"

Kara's jaw set, stubborn.

"And I have to go play soccer," Lucy said, seeing the shouting guy rounding the players up.

"There's soccer?"

It was the first genuinely curious thing Kara had said.

"Yeah," Lucy responded. "You play?"

Kara made a face. "I used to. Before the new school."

"Well, you're probably as good as me then," Lucy said. "I used to, in college, like ten-plus years ago. Come on."

Kara looked conflicted, but she followed Lucy to the field and took a red jersey.

At some point, Alura realized she'd lost Kara. She'd lost Zor too, but she'd seen him be appropriated by a few people in one of the science departments and they were happily talking research.

But losing Kara was somewhat more concerning. Alura took a leisurely walk around the park, keeping an eye out for hideaways where Kara might have settled with a book, or trouble she might be getting into. It was only when she reached the soccer field did she spot a familiar figure.

Two familiar figures.

Lucy and Kara were racing up the field, a long kick from the goalie arcing through the air. Lucy jumped to catch it on her chest and knock it down. A tackler was on her, trying to steal the ball, and she kicked it cross field to Kara who took it, self-passed around a defenseman, crossed again in time for Lucy to pick it up right on the box and sink it straight and hard into the upper left corner.

The red team cheered, Kara looked thrilled and she and Lucy crashed bodily into each other in an odd sportsman-celebration. Then they hustled back to their places and the game began again.

A low thread of dread started uncoiling itself in Alura's stomach. Things seemed to be slipping out of her control, intertwining. She'd trusted Lucy to not ask, to stay out of it, to keep herself separate from Alura's regular life. If Alura imputed any ill will from her, any desire to make Alura do anything--leave her husband, treat her better, acknowledge her publicly--this would have been something to fear. Your secret lover playing nice with your kid was a cliff's edge.

But she didn't have that feeling about Lucy. Lucy was . . . acting like she would if they were just friends--if they were friends at all.

It was a different sort of exhausted disappointment that filled Alura. Why couldn't this have been enough? Why couldn't she have figured out a way to not be miserable, so she didn't have to cross her own boundaries, break her own standards of behavior? Why couldn't she have lived her life so she could just be happy that Kara was having a good time with one of her work friends?

But she hadn't, and she had to live with that.

Lucy looked up from the field, caught sight of Alura on the edge of it, and smiled. It was quick and warm and easy, unashamed.

Then there was a yell and she was back in the game, focused and fierce, just like her daughter. For all Alura had been with Lucy so many times, she didn't really know her, not that kind of obsessive intimacy that was the usual beginning to a relationship, when you know every show they watch--every book they read--every hobby they have, astonished by the overlaps, excited by the differences. She knew her as a colleague and casual friend, and she knew her body, but that was all.

Maybe that wasn't a surprise, because it wasn't as if she knew Kara any better, and she'd forgotten more about Zor than she knew about him now.

She didn't know anyone very well. But she wanted to know Kara, and she . . . she wished she wanted to know Lucy less. Because this had to be over. She had to be able to go to a company picnic without having anxiety eating at her like piranhas.

"Your husband's here." Calvin sauntered up to her, holding a beer and smiling. "That's a surprise."

"Yes," Alura said. "It's hard to get him out of his shell."

Her colleague smiled at her again, laughter in his eyes, as if he thought she was clever. Alura noted Zor coming over to the food tables, rescuing an about-to-be-charred hot dog from one of the semi-competent accountants pretending to be a semi-competent barbecuer, and look over at her. He saw her colleague, and a frown line furrowed in his forehead. But another scientist approached and drew him into conversation and he relaxed.

Calvin wouldn't leave her alone. She tried to evade him, but he kept showing up. He pulled her into a conversation with the CEO (who was in a button-down. In honor of the event, he wore no tie and his sleeves were rolled up.) and then they were talking about work--as always--and Alura was just ready for this to be over.

She saw Lucy and Kara and some guys in red t-shirts thunder into the food area and grab bottles of water, glugging them down and dousing themselves and each other. She darted a quick look at Zor--was he seeing this? If he'd known about her relationship with Lucy, god only knew how he'd feel about this.

He wasn't looking.

Calvin told a joke, and she faked laughing along with the CEO. Then the CEO moved away, but Calvin stayed near, smiling tautly. He looked over at Kara who was reliving a particularly good play with Lucy and her other teammates. "Doen't it worry you," he whispered, "to let your young lover play games with your pretty daughter?"

The hard-to-catch fury in her was suddenly alight. How dare he? How dare he say anything about Kara, and how dare he imply anything about Lucy? She would  _ kill _ him. 

"If you ever say a single word about my daughter again," she hissed. "I will sic HR on you so fast that your head will spin with the speed of it. Don't think I don't have a whole file full of private complaints about you, but if I say you made comments about my daughter you won't get hired in this industry again."

His mouth went taut, but otherwise he made no sign that she'd threatened him at all. A slight flick of a smile on one corner of his lip was all the reaction he gave. "I'm so sorry, Alura," he said, the whine of a brownnoser in his voice. "Clearly I didn't mean it like that, that would be totally inappropriate. Rather like having an affair with a subordinate." He pressed her hand as if she ever wanted him to touch her.

Then he was gone and Alura's chest was tight. Goddammit. He knew. Not just a rumor. He knew.

Zor was looking over at them. He bid his conversation partner goodbye and started towards her, and then Calvin was intercepting him. "Hello! Mr. Alura, aren't you? It's nice to see you around, unexpected, but nice." He squeezed Zor's arm and gave him a sly, sharp smile. He glanced back at Alura once, his eyes dead cold, and walked away.

She was still so hot with fury at that asshole that she didn't notice Zor finishing his approach.

Zor grabbed her arm, and she looked up, surprised. He'd done it subtly, keeping his body between her and the sight of other people, but his grip was bruisingly hard. He conveyed her behind the outhouse. Outside he kept all the appearances of calm, but when they were out of sight and he turned to face her, his face was red; he was shaking. When he spoke, his voice was ragged with fury, but he kept it to a whisper.

"I can't believe you. I can't believe you'd be so shameless."

#

Lucy noticed when Kara went quiet. She'd been the golden kid of the team, star forward, and the guys were yukking it up to congratulate her--particularly after everyone figured out she was Alura's kid. Lucy was keeping an eye on things to make sure no one made her uncomfortable. But she was having a good time, and the soccer guys were good guys, and Lucy had won the pool in Legal. She took her payment from Brad and gave Kara a cut, for being a ringer, she said. Kara laughed, but counted the money excitedly and pocketed it.

But after they'd decamped to the food, Kara had gone suddenly silent. She was looking over in the direction of the cluster of trees that the CEO had been under a little while ago, and there was a horrible pale strain on her face that didn't belong on someone who had just a moment ago been red-cheeked and smiling. Kara put down her plate and started moving towards the outhouse.

Lucy followed her.

#

"What are you talking about, Zor?" Alura snapped.

"You! In front of me! Talking to him, laughing at his jokes, letting him whisper things in your ear. I can't believe you."

Alura was standing there, looking utterly bewildered.

Lucy went stock still. She shouldn't be here for this. Oh god, she really shouldn't be here at all.

"I know you're having an affair, Alura! I just cannot believe you'd bring me here just to rub it in my face!"

"You think--" Alura was just staring at him, gaping. She didn't look properly horrified at all. Lucy was apparently the only one who knew when it was time to be horrified. "--you think I'm having an affair with  _ Calvin _ ?"

"Goddammit, Alura! You didn't even try to keep it a secret! Late nights at the office, drinks at fancy bars, hotel rooms on your credit cards. Honestly, I couldn't believe my own suspicions at first because you lied so carelessly, so sociopathically, like it didn't matter. But it matters if you're going to do  _ this _ . I didn't even care very much. It was clear we were barely civil, so fine, fuck whoever you want. But I won't stand for being treated like less than a goddamned man in front of your co-workers.  _ Mr. Alura _ ."

" _ Calvin _ ?" Alura sounded an inch away from laughing hysterically; Zor looked a moment away from steaming at the ears.

It was Kara who spoke next.

"It's not Calvin, Dad," she said.

Zor's head jerked up; he stared at her, horrified that she'd heard his accusations. Alura spun, all of the blood draining from her face.

She saw Lucy. The seriousness that had been missing when it was about Calvin was suddenly there. The edge of desperation that Lucy had grown familiar with filled her eyes. You never knew what Alura would do when that desperation hit. Lucy really, really wished she knew what anyone was going to do next.

Kara stuck her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders, her head hanging low. "It's not. If it's anyone here, it's Lucy." She jerked her head in Lucy's direction.

The words, though quiet, felt like heavy drumbeats, echoing in the small private space surrounded by chatter and laughter and noise.

"Why . . . why do you think that, darling?" Alura asked, her voice shaking.

Kara shrugged. "She's the only one you like here. You like her, and you're embarrassed by it."

"Kara," Zor intervened. "You don't need to  _ like _ someone to--" And then he stopped, looking at Lucy, then back to Alura, then to Lucy again.

Lucy didn't know what he saw. A scruffy woman in short shorts and a t-shirt and untidy hair and a dirty face from soccer--this was not how she expected to be introduced to . . . Alura's husband. She didn't know what he saw when he looked at her, but when he looked at Alura, his shoulders drooped and his head lifted, like a curious, confused bird. Lucy could see Alura's face just as well, how it had fallen, how it revealed the slow collapse of her life.

"Is it?" he asked.  _ Is it Lucy? _

Lucy's chest was too tight to breathe.

Alura let out a soft sigh then said one word that spelled the end of everything.

"Yes."

#

In the end, the rest of it pretty much passed Lucy by. Zor had given her one more long disbelieving look, then turned to Alura and said, flat, with no room for negotiation, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Alura had put her hands in her hair, let her shoulders fall, and said, "all right," as one long sigh.

It didn't sound unlike relief.

"Let's go home," Zor said. The In-Ze family walked away.

Kara looked back once, her face unreadable, eyes just a little shiny, and Lucy felt something inside her break. This wasn't all her fault, Lucy knew that. She wasn't the one who had ruined this family. But she'd been used as a tool in their destruction, and that . . . that sucked. She'd wanted Alura's attention, she'd wanted Kara to like her. But she didn't have any of that now.

She got one text from Alura:  _ Sorry _ , and that was all.

At work the next week the rumor mill was buzzing. Alura In-Ze was getting a divorce. Alura In-Ze was quitting her job. Alura In-Ze was a lesbian. Alura In-Ze had hit on all of the women in three departments. Alura had 4 HR complaints against her. Alura had been misappropriating company funds to pay for her affairs.

"What do you know, Lucy? You were friendly with her."

Lucy had had enough. "I know that her personal life is none of your business," she snapped.

There was a moment of silence and then one of the Legal guys tipped his head to the side and smiled. "She ever make a move on you, Lane? Or are you jealous that she didn't?"

Lucy gave the man who'd spoken a withering look and left the room. She really didn't need to be around any of this. It was all a big fucking disaster.

And in the end, it wasn't  _ her _ disaster. She didn't matter in the greater scheme of things. If Alura was getting a divorce, it probably would have happened anyway, and her actually getting a divorce meant she wouldn't need Lucy's kind of secret relief anymore. Alura could work on making her life actually better. And Lucy . . . Lucy had to figure out her own way out of this mess.

Ride it out or leave?

And then she came into the office and everyone was looking at her. Everyone. She'd been waiting for this. It looked like Calvin had dropped the bomb.

"Really?" one of the guys in Legal asked her, quietly and seriously.

Lucy sighed. "No comment," she said.

"Huh," he said, but his eyes' quick flick over her body said something else.

It was definitely time to leave.

As a lawyer, Alura, as a general rule, hated lawyers, and Zor's grasping divorce attorney was no exception. But also, as a lawyer, she would not put up with shit from other lawyers, and though Zor was hurt and offended and shocked, she was not going to just back down on some of these terms, even if she had been the one to cheat. Zor had his own goddamn job and could support himself, and she had paid every goddamn mortgage payment, because he could never find his checkbook, and he was not entitled to her property just because she'd hurt his feelings.

Everything was a negotiating chip. The only thing she would not budge on was Kara. Her choice, half the time with Mom and half the time with Dad, no more boarding school, and a contract that required neither of them to move out of Kara's school district until she'd graduated high-school.

In the end, Alura had to let some things go--like half the house. But she got what she wanted overall. No-fault divorce (she wasn't contesting it, and if he wanted to pay his lawyer for all the time it would take to set up an adultery case, he could go ahead, but she thought it was stupid, and he really wasn't vindictive enough to spend money for little benefit.) Half-time with Kara, and no alimony. They sold the house, split the take, Alura got a two bedroom apartment near the school they'd decided would be best for Kara--it had soccer, and an excellent theater and arts program, and all the students lived at home. Though it was on the upper west side, it was technically a public school, so there were no Luthors there.

The meetings with the CEO and HR had not gone quite as well--if you could call the seventeen shouting matches with Zor because she was not quite as humble and contrite as he considered appropriate 'well'. Calvin had been sewing seeds.

_ Yes, I had a relationship with a colleague. No, they were not a direct report. Yes, I should have mentioned it to HR, but then my marriage probably would have blown up even sooner. Yes, I do think it was an error in judgement to pursue that relationship. I'm not sure integrity has ever been a particular asset in this company. No, I'm not being snide. _

They came back to her with a slight demotion and a paycut, and Alura just smiled at the offer. "Honestly, one of the main stressors on my marriage was that I do not want to work in this industry anymore, so I'm not going to take this. Thank you for not firing me, which means the time-of-resignation bonus calculation terms that are in my contract still apply. Here's my letter of resignation. Goodbye."

The shock on the CEO's face was adorable. She made sure Calvin heard about the bonus, but that was the last petty thing she needed to do.

She was free.

#

Lucy was a month into her new job and finally getting the hang of things--particularly being in an office that wasn't 900% macho posturing (very strange), but was instead a little frantic and chaotic, as every client needed something different and there was really no way to put things off--when on a Saturday while she was still in pajamas, someone knocked on her door.

It was Kara.

She had a soccer ball under one arm. "Hey," she said. "I got your address out of my mom's phone. You want to go to the park?"

Lucy just stared at her. "You know your mom hasn't messaged me once--"

Kara cut her off with a gesture. "Soccer," she said, presenting the ball with emphasis.

Lucy sighed, let Kara in, then went and got dressed. In the park they fought the roaming dogs for a strip of land and passed a little to warm up. Then they played one-on-one, which was wildly more exercise than Lucy was used to these days, and she ran five miles almost daily.

When Lucy was holding her knees and gasping, Kara started to talk.

"No one thought I knew about what was going on with my parents, but I did. They fought all the time, and half the kids at school had divorced parents, or separated parents, and the rest had parents that probably should get a divorce. Some of them married their mistresses and stuff, and people complained when their step-parents were too young or too dumb or too selfish. When I heard Dad going on about Mom having an affair I figured I needed to do some recon to make sure my step-parent wouldn't be terrible. I guessed it might be you when I met you at work, because you were so awkward. But then I wasn't so sure. And then you didn't blackmail well at the picnic."

"The beer thing was blackmail?" Lucy gasped into her knees. She'd wondered. "I probably would have buckled if I'd been sure."

Kara snickered a little at that admittance. "Well I wasn't sure, and it's kind of an odd thing to say straight out."

"'You're sleeping with my mom, so get me a beer?' Yeah," Lucy concurred, "pretty weird."

"But there wasn't anyone else, like, obviously it wasn't any of the men there. Mom has this eye-roll thing she does when she really cannot bear how dumb someone is, and I guess Dad is right that you don't have to like someone to sleep with them, but . . ." Kara made a face. "I don't think Mom would sleep with someone she didn't respect at all."

For the little Lucy could verify, it was not an unreasonable impression of Alura.

"But I'm upset," Kara said, seriously. "I like you. You're weird and awkward, but you're good at soccer and you don't lie to me. I figured that it was fine to tell Dad about you because it was going to blow up anyway, and I didn't mind the idea of you as a step-parent, so I should make sure all the drama didn't drive you away. But everything's sorted now. Mom and Dad are actually making an effort to be civil. I have a new school, Mom has a new place and a new job and Dad has a new place and possibly a girlfriend, but he's embarrassed to say so straight out, and, wow, I do not like her. But  _ you're _ not there. And that's not how I planned this."

Lucy's heartrate had slowed to something reasonable and she let herself straighten up. Kara looked fierce and certain and a little bit desperate and like she almost might be about to cry.

Lucy really, really did not want her to cry. But she didn't have any good answers for this. "She didn't text me," was all she could manage. It hurt to say it, to feel disposable like that.

But there wasn't really anything else she could say.

Kara stuck her hands on her hips and put her foot on the ball and glared. "Maybe she's embarrassed? Did you think about that? Maybe  _ you _ could text  _ her _ ?"

#

Alura got the text on a morning jog around Central Park. Her new office didn't need her until nine, her new apartment was only a twenty minute commute, and her mornings were much less dreadful. Getting Kara out the door at 6:45 meant she had nearly two hours to herself. After a few weeks she could almost enjoy those two hours without having the creeping sensation that there was something important she'd forgotten to do.

_ Hi, _ the text said _. I haven't seen you in a while and I just wanted to know how you were getting on. I know things have been rough for you and I hope they're going better. I'd be happy to maybe meet up some time to talk if you're free. If you don't want to, you don't have to. I can take a hint. I just thought I'd like to let you know that I would like that. I want to try to be your friend, and friends check in, right? I couldn't do that before. I had no claim on you or your time, and I still don't, but I wanted you to know that I'm open to you . . . making a claim on me _ .

It was long and rambly and a little adorable and Alura had to stop running to stare at it for a full minute.

Then she texted Lucy back.

###

  
  



End file.
